I advised someone a while back on another forum not to try doing what he'd seen in that video. It seems alot of people have seen it and decided that they knew everything they had to know about casting metal, and hadn't looked any further.

I'm having a hard time wording how the video makes me feel, so bear with me. I think the guy is a ****. He's making little easily digested 'science experiment' style videos aimed at the 'lifehack' crowd, which I have nothing against, except he's encouraging people (and most likely kids) to try do something fairly dangerous at home without any understanding of the hazards involved. He's not given any warnings about potential dangers, and even suggested that putting cans with soda left in them into the molten metal is totally safe.

I hope the guy's just an idiot, but with his weaselly little hidden disclaimer in the video description it feels like he intentionally neglected to mention it in the video itself to make it more likely to get posted about. It wouldn't be half as appealing (to his target audience) if the guy admitted 'this is really dangerous and you probably should read into it more before trying it out for yourselves'.

Anyways sorry to be grumpy about it but this stuff just really frightens me. It's the kind of thing I might've tried out when I was 13 and didn't know any better.

The really glaring health issue to me is the burning of synthetic can coatings and particularly the non-stick coating on the muffin tin. Many flourine based modern coatings like PTFE when degraded by excessive heat (well beyond the rated cooking temperature use in cookware) are extremely hazardous to breathe.

The dsclaimer "Use common sense," is ludicrous. Not everyone is aware the seriousness of the hazards involved other than the obvious high temperatures.

Aluminum for melting should be clean, and plain uncoated steel molds should be used for ingot making, in case someone here doesn't realize it.....understandably.

Its grossly unstable being a bucket shape wider at the top easy to tip pouring hot molten metal and charcoal onto a person or surface.The blower tube and hair drier set up like he had a gust of wind and instant fire or burnt person.Let alone the tube inserted my also melt with the heat and the heat travel along the tube to the plastic one hot melt plastic.Kitchen tongs please I've picked up a set of tong resting near and edge of a BBQ and dropped them just as quick due to radiant heat.

As the fellows above have said "DangerMan"

Other things spotted was very little PPG personal protection gear, sneakers ? nylon sox? nylon clothing? all these will and can ignite standing near an open fire or BBQ.

I've worked in die-cast shops and take it from me getting even a small blob of molten zinc ally on you can really spoil your day. That set up was, as Ginger Nut said, horribly unstable and well capable of tipping over and dropping a couple of pints of liquid metal over his unprotected feet.

However it did show the valuable lesson of how not to do things, so I'll bear it in mind when I start on my casting project in the Summer.

Eug

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RobWilson

I actually turned it off @ "light the foundry " , but decided to have another look this morning lol oh my did it get worse .

I cant agree more with everyone above's comments, ALL bring up very valid concerns , yet another bullshit youtube video demonstrating that if you cant even get the terminology right its all down hill from there .

Agreed the guy is a cretin.....he seems to exhibit the same blasť approach on every vid I've seen of his on youtube and this us no exception......I can't imagine what he was thinking when he created this vid......no sense of danger of any kind....

Would you weld without a mask? Answers on the back of a postage stamp.....

While this is all true and I agree with what's said, I think it's more to do with the current culture. Should we really have warning stickers on everything? Or should we not look and think ah this part could be dangerous so I'll take these steps. This is what bugs me with H+S rules today. The current trend is 'if there's no warning signs then it must be safe' rather than teaching people to risk assess before they do something. Yes more info on correct ppe would be good but if you aren't aware of the dangers of very hot things, especially liquids, then really doing things like that is not for you. The reason we have so many idiots about now is because HS stops them being naturally removed from the gene pool.

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Lee.wishing my workshop was larger

lordedmond

Now I do not own use a furnace of any description but I served my time and did a further five years at Stanton iron works who ran base exchange units and quite a few cupolas plus six induction furnaces the bigges was a modest 1.5 megawatt unitSo I have seen a lot of metal melted

To say you can put wet cans into a melt is insane , the guys used to put the bales of scap steel around the top of the induction furnaces to warm up and dry out if they were damp , well one day i was doing maint on the control panel , we did it live so as not to stop production , they kicked in the said bales guess what have you seen 7 tons of molten iron going skywards it's a fair sight , anyway no one was hurt but the crane track and crane above was destroyed along with the furnace coil.That made a lot of work for us to refit it allThe cause was guessed at but full tin cans were found it some other bales so take bets.Much larger bangs were made when the prop was pulled from under a cupola at the end of the shift , have you seen the counter sunk bolts used to hold chequer plate down turned into wine glasses

I don't agree that health and safety labels plastered all over common tools purchased these days is the equivalent annoyance to releasing popular culture how-to videos on soda can melting.

Rather than text disclamers, proper explanations of what not to do and especially, why not, should be included in this kind of supposedly instructive foundry practice video, seemingly aimed at teens.

Proper explanations aren't mere disclaimers, and very important to an audience, not just an amateurish attempt to avoid responsibility. Here, every problem is minimized, and fast talk eases the way to what is essentially a popularity sell for the narrator. Then some afterthought warnings to "use common sense" are tacked on, probably to deal with viewer complaints, and the guy moves on to a new video subject.

There's a big difference, too between someone documenting an experment or method he/she has tried out vs. an expert producing a tutorial with instructions people are supposed to follow.

For me the first is usually fine, even if it's an amateur and there are problems, mistakes, etc. and these are talked about. And the attitude is modest. That can be interesting and helpful, and even fun.

Agree with you all about the disregard for proper safety in this guys video. The bit that really chilled me was watching him pushing cans under the surface of molten ally,which are highly likely to contain residual drops of liquid soda pop.

He's been extremely lucky that in delivering any liquid beneath the metal surface he didn't get an instant steam explosion and the resultant ejection of molten aluminium......OZ.

Anyone who tries something just because 'they saw it in a YouTube video' without checking on the dangers involved for themselves deserves all they get imo. Also the part of 'cans with liquid still in them ' would this not just evap off before the can melted? Cans are hard to completely empty after all.

I don't have a problem with the furnace body itself actually, I doubt it will knock over easily. And I don't usually do a lot of freestyle kicking around a firing furnace. But I do have a problem with the inhalation of fluorine degradation products by kids watching this video. That can be a one time mistake. Take out the non-stick muffin tin recommendation in the movie, period. Warnings aren't sufficient.

Yeah, I kind of cringed when seeing Simon's routing of the pulley photo -- but as I said before, it's one thing to show what you've done, as opposed to telling others how to do things. We all take personal risks, commensurate, hopefully, with our skill level.

I don't know anyone who cuts wood on a bandsaw that uses metal gauntlets, either.

Anyone who tries something just because 'they saw it in a YouTube video' without checking on the dangers involved for themselves deserves all they get imo. Also the part of 'cans with liquid still in them ' would this not just evap off before the can melted? Cans are hard to completely empty after all.

Also the part of 'cans with liquid still in them ' would this not just evap off before the can melted? Cans are hard to completely empty after all.

Yes it may evaporate off if left on the surface,but if you push the water containing can beneath the surface of the molten metal the water turns to flash steam with an expansion rate approximately 1600 times liquid volume (1cc of water becomes 1600cc of explosively expanded vapour)

If this process occurs beneath the molten metal surface the outcome isn't going to be good,this is how many serious foundry explosions occur......OZ.

Just an edit for addition here: About 15 years ago a mate of mine had a furnace setup to melt a plentiful source of scrap pistons,for many melts he had never had any problems until one day he was melting a batch which had been laying outside. Some of the pistons still had rings fitted which were seized in the grooves,but little known to him water was trapped behind them. One such piston was added to the molten metal and pushed beneath the surface with tongs causing the trapped water to flash steam and eject a quantity of liquid ally into the air. Fortunately nobody was injured,but safety lessons were certainly learned that day.

Preheating in the foundry exhaust is a simple way of not only eliminating the possibility of moisture from scrap stock, but in reducing melt time. I'm speaking of massive stock, like pistons, not soda cans.

This is a very dangerous thing to do. Ok with a band knife but never with any blade that has teeth that can grab a chain mail glove.

At the chicken factory I worked years back an operative lost part of his hand when he pushed some meat into s pair of serrated rollers while wearing such a glove.He shouldn't have been able to do it, but he over rode the safety on the gate that would have prevented his hand getting near the rollers.

Apologies for unleashing such an un-madmodding vid, I did wonder at the quality of content but then my noob knowledge of such things got the better of me.. I also have a very healthy regard and respect of body parts and the potential damage to them by casting and other modding activities so shan't be carrying out my casting in such a cavalier method. Will go a sit at the back of the class with dunce hat on for a bit

This is a very dangerous thing to do. Ok with a band knife but never with any blade that has teeth that can grab a chain mail glove.

At the chicken factory I worked years back an operative lost part of his hand when he pushed some meat into s pair of serrated rollers while wearing such a glove.He shouldn't have been able to do it, but he over rode the safety on the gate that would have prevented his hand getting near the rollers.

Apologies for unleashing such an un-madmodding vid, I did wonder at the quality of content but then my noob knowledge of such things got the better of me.. I also have a very healthy regard and respect of body parts and the potential damage to them by casting and other modding activities so shan't be carrying out my casting in such a cavalier method. Will go a sit at the back of the class with dunce hat on for a bit

Yeah don't worry about it. It's why those sorts of videos annoy me, they could fool anyone who didn't know any better.